Stars: Cybill Shepherd, Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cloris Leachman, Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Summary: A drama set in Texas in the 1950's where the lives of several people are affected by the changing attitudes of the time....Based on the novel by Larry McMurtry.

Director Peter Bogdanovich (MASK, PAPER MOON) brings Larry McMurtry's bittersweet novel of life in a small, sleepy Texas town in the early 1950s to the big screen. This coming-of-age tale focuses on best friends Sonny Crawford (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Jeff Bridges) and their relationships. Duane is dating the beautiful but fickle Jacy Farrow (Cybill Shepherd), a good girl who is looking for a little excitement. Shy Sonny, meanwhile, is carrying on an illicit affair with a coach's wife, Ruth Popper (Cloris Leachman), a sad, plain woman whose only joy appears to be the stolen moments they share. By delving into the intertwining lives of the town's diverse residents, the film explores issues of love, loneliness, innocence lost, and disillusionment. The closing of the town's only cinema serves as both a physical and metaphoric backdrop to the characters' lives. A favorite of critics, the film was nominated for eight Oscars, earning one for both Leachman and Ben Johnson. Model-turned-actress Shepherd shines as Jacy in her film debut, which also features Ellen Burstyn as Jacy's mother, Lois Farrow. TEXASVILLE, the sequel, is also directed by Bogdanovich and stars most of the original cast of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

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Based on the novel by Larry McMurty The Last Picture Showis a more bitter than bittersweet drama about growing up and winding down in the dusty nowhere town of Anarene, Texas, during 1951-52. Unusually shot in black and white while the rest of Hollywood was going psychedelic in 1971, it's an interesting contrast with the rock 'n' roll nostalgia of American Graffiti(the films share a key moment in which the boy who is leaving town gives a precious car to his stay-at-home friend and both make oblique references to Vietnam). It visits a recent past already nostalgic for a heroic Western era and discovers that whatever was wonderful has already gone by the time of these teenagers. Introspective Timothy Bottoms and outgoing Jeff Bridges are best friends and stalwarts of the school's losing football team. Cybill Shepherd is the blonde teen queen who innocently spreads chaos, ditching long-time boyfriend Bridges to run with a richer, faster set. She steals Bottoms away from an older married woman (Cloris Leachman) which prompts a vicious falling-out between Bottoms and Bridges. As the kids run around heedless, the town's older generation remember their own wilder days and wonder how they came to be so unhappy. Ben Johnson, in Academy Award-winning form, is "Sam the Lion", the wise old cowboy who runs the movie house and pool hall. He muses about his long-ago affair with Shepherd's feisty mother (Ellen Burstyn), who is currently throwing herself at a callous oilman stud (Clu Gulager). A soap in essence but director Peter Bogdanovich plays it as a John Ford-style "closing of the frontier" Western, with ugly-beautiful images of a West that has swapped cattle for oil but failed to strike it rich. He layers in evocative snatches of Hank Williams among the whistling winds and the whining locals. It perhaps has a tragedy too many in its last act and can't quite work up the tears with an actual martyrdom, but it does deliver a signature line of wistful regret, "nothing's been right since Sam the Lion died".

On the DVD:this is an anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 version of the 121-minute 1974 re-release, with one additional scene for Eileen Brennan's waitress, now labelled "the director's cut". It boasts a great sounding mono track, with alternate soundtracks and subtitles in a bunch of languages; a tiny promo piece from 1974 with a Bogdanovich interview; a solid hour-long retrospective documentary with interviews from a lot of the cast and crew (including future director Frank Marshall, an assistant and bit-player) and some trailers. Oddly, Bogdanovich has done a full-length commentary for Orson Welles' Citizen Kanebut not for his own best film. --Kim Newman

Aspect Ratio:	1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	The Last Picture Show A Look Back Documentary, Theatrical Rerelease Featurette, Theatrical Trailer, Filmographies
Subtitles:	Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
Year:	1971
Release Date:	November 26, 2001
Runtime:	114 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	C D R 12977
Keywords:	Last, Show, Picture, General, Wide, Screen, Drama
Genre:	Drama